album review: 'american dream' by lcd soundsystem

Okay, I've talked a little bit in the past about artists that even fellow critics acknowledge are 'critic-bait' - acts that pay tribute to the past while expanding their sound into interesting genre fusions that are experimental but not incredibly challenging, often overloaded with easter egg references and frontmen who are as much music nerds as we are, you get the idea. Now I'm not immune to this - hell, one of the reasons why I'm such a big fan of Eric Church's Mr. Misunderstood is that he transplanted that vinyl-collecting, Wilco-referencing archetype into country music, and it was a phenomenal fit for me - but I think one of the reasons where I'm more tolerant of that is because in country Church's subject matter did make him feel like a genuine outcast and the self-mythologizing rang through stronger, whereas in indie rock it's a lot more common and...

Okay, there's no way around this, I've been bracing myself for this LCD Soundsystem review ever since they were first referenced on Season 2 of You're The Worst. The project of frontman James Murphy that won a tidal wave of critical acclaim in the 2000s for fusing ridiculously tight electronic grooves with guitar-driven indie rock and lyrics intensely knowledgeable of music history and yet focused most on the inevitable wistful melancholy of growing older, it was laser-focused to hit a certain demographic of music critic... and yet I'll be the first to say I've always held them a bit at arm's length. Don't get me wrong, the grooves are pretty damn great, even if I find some of the melodies lacking and James Murphy's navel gazing pretty pretentious - I know, coming from me, I get it - and frequently right on the edge of insufferable. But considering the group effectively broke apart after This Is Happening in 2010, I figured I'd never need to discuss them further... until the retirement myth ended, they got back together for an encore record called American Dream this year that as everyone could have predicted has won buckets of critical acclaim... although among critics I like and respect a little less than you'd otherwise expect. Okay, my interest was piqued, what did I find on American Dream?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 16, 2017 (VIDEO)

This week took entirely too long to edit... and it sucked. Go figure.

Next up, LCD Soundsystem momentarily, so stay tuned...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 16, 2017

Because this is what I want to deal with on my first few days back from vacation, a double album bomb from records that I had no reason to expect were anything close to good or interesting, just goddamn perfect. And of course there is more news than that, but at this point, if I want to keep this episode at a sane length for the twenty new arrivals we have, we're going to have to keep this moving...

album review: 'saturation ii' by BROCKHAMPTON/'fifth harmony' by fifth harmony/'landmark' by hippo campus/'neva left' by snoop dogg/'all blue' by g perico (VACATION SERIES!)

And that's the vacation series covered. Twenty five records in two weeks... whew.

Okay, now it's time for Billboard BREAKDOWN, stay tuned!

album review: 'a deeper understanding' by the war on drugs/'bedouine' by bedouine/'brett eldredge' by brett eldredge/'lukas nelson & promise of the real' (S/T) (VACATION SERIES!)

I keep forgetting to post these here... okay, one more from vacation, and then Billboard BREAKDOWN for this week...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 9, 2017 (VIDEO)

Well, this was a rough week... but overall, pretty pleased with how it turned out. Enjoy!

album review: 'villains' by queens of the stone age / 'god's problem child' by willie nelson / 'any night in texas' by jon wolfe / '27861' by parmalee (VACATION SERIES)

I always fall behind with vlog updates, but here we go - enjoy!

album review: 'science fiction' by brand new / 'in•ter a•li•a' by at the drive-in / 'always lose' by the gospel youth / 'our pleasure' by single mothers (VACATION SERIES!)

So that's a lot of punk rock... gee, I guess while I'm in Nashville I might as well cover some country music... stay tuned!

album review: 'painted ruins' by grizzly bear / 'how did we get so dark' by royal blood / 'visuals' by mew / 'no culture' by mother mother (VACATION SERIES)

So here is our second vlog, this time from Lexington (and a few days late posting - I am on vacation, promotion takes time). In any case, next up I'm now in Nashville, so stay tuned for more!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 2, 2017 (VIDEO)

Yeah, not exactly my most popular episodes, filmed from the road with no script and a bit more bluntness and camera movement, but this turned out alright enough, I think. Enjoy!

album review: 'to the bone' by steven wilson / 'feed the machine' by nickelback / 'vista' by hell or highwater / 'poison the parish' by seether (VACATION SERIES!)

Four in one, and it won't be the only it happens. Stay tuned for more!

video review: 'known unknowns' by billy woods

So yeah, much later than I expected, but still worth talking about. Beyond that... well, I'm on vacation now, so let's bundle a couple reviews together for the next video, a few old and one new... stay tuned!

album review: 'known unknowns' by billy woods

Well, it's about damn time I got to this, an artist I referenced in my last hip-hop review and who some have told me has dropped one of the stronger projects this year... and I have to say, it's taken me a while to really get to billy woods.

So, here's some context: he's a New York MC, he founded his own label Backwoodz Studioz, he's been putting out albums since the early-to-mid 2000s, but really started to hit a potent creative stride in the early 2010s, both on his own and as a member of the duo Armand Hammer with frequent collaborator Elucid - who I'll also probably end up covering at some point this year, given his critical acclaim. And that's important to note: if we're looking at New York hip-hop artists who are pushing and challenging the sound in the vein of what Def Jux did fifteen years ago, I'd definitely put Billy Woods on that list in a similar way I would Uncommon Nasa - the bars a little more direct here but no less thought-provoking, and often times over even more challenging production on records like History Will Absolve Me.

And yet, if I'm being brutally honest, I've struggled to completely embrace a billy woods project as a whole. Some of his songs can tilt around rap cliches, but a larger issue I found on his 2015 project Today, I Wrote Nothing was a certain scattershot nature of a lot of tracks, potent in snippets but nearly always leading to projects that felt too long and not quite coalescing as a whole, at least for me. Which was frustrating because between his blunt and curt style of delivery and some challenging and experimental production, this is the sort of rapper I'd love to wholeheartedly get behind, and with the continued stream of critical acclaim for his newest record Known Unknowns, I was hoping this could be the one to do it for me. So, what I did find?

video review: 'woodstock' by portugal. the man

About time I got to this, especially given the peculiar story I have surrounding it.

And on that note...

album review: 'woodstock' by portugal. the man

Oh, this is awkward - mostly because if you had told me a few months ago I was going to be putting together this particular review under these circumstances, I would have called you crazy, and yet...

Okay, let me back up. A couple months ago, I was actually contacted by Portugal. The Man and their management to produce a video where I could give a 'review' of one of their upcoming songs for their new album Woodstock, that they would use in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way in their promotional material. Now I know a bunch of critics I like and respect contributed to this, but I didn't for three main reasons: one, it felt perilously close to something that might compromise my critical ethics and I'd prefer to be safe than sorry; two, if I had done that video I'd feel obliged to cover the record and I'd prefer to use my schedule additions for records I had a vested interest in reviewing; and finally, it's a Portugal. The Man record, who the hell was going to care? 

Yeah, I know, in retrospect now it feels a bit dismissive, but Portugal. The Man has never been an indie rock act I've ever had interest in. They've never been a huge critical darling as they flirted with electronic and psychedelic textures, and I personally am not a huge fan of frontman John Gourley's vocals or songwriting, but I wouldn't begrudge anybody being a fan of the group. They were fine enough, I guess, but I never found them interesting enough to pursue more, especially once they signed to Atlantic and brought Brian Burton behind the production boards - and if you've seen my reviews talking about Burton's production over the past few years, you'd understand why. And then 'Feel It Still' broke the top 40 and topped the rock charts and suddenly over a decade into their career Portugal. The Man actually had a bonafide hit! It's a weird feeling seeing that and realizing you could have been part of their promotional effort, but now I at least understand why so many people want me to cover this, so let's give 'em what they want: what did we find with Woodstock?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 26, 2017 (VIDEO)

So yeah, pretty lousy week, but it was a pretty easy one to put together, so I guess I'll take it?

Anyway, time to take care of some old business - stay tuned!

video review: 'oh, yuck' by so much light

Look, sometimes you have to call a spade a spade, and this guy might just not be my thing. Eh, it happens.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN and something I probably should have covered two months ago... stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 26, 2017

Man, I'm happy this is a more reasonable week on the Hot 100 here, given how crazy my schedule is right now. And when I say reasonable, I mean that very little actually seemed to make big moves, we have a modest list of expected new arrivals, and while there is some action in the top 10 worth talking about, we're at the point where things are on the cusp of really breaking open.

album review: 'oh, yuck' by so much light

So I'm sure at this point many of you have seen a certain piece of bad writing at The Atlantic making the rounds with a particularly ugly clickbait title called 'Progressive Rock Is The Whitest Music Ever'. And yeah, the article lives down to the title, the sort of piece that reflects an uncanny lack of knowledge surrounding the genre and really a general disinterest in writing about it altogether. But aside from an easy opportunity to bag on awful music journalism, the article did get me thinking why people dislike the genre, because there are some points in calling out prog for its pretentiousness wankery, its underweight concept record with bloated orchestration, and complexity for its own sake.

Here's my point: there is a genre of music where this sort of thing bothers me... and progressive rock and metal is not really that genre. No, it's the more obscure and for me much more frustrating genre of math rock, known for complex time signatures and rigidly over-designed melodic and rhythm sections. And with less of a focus on lyricism, you can bet that I'm not really a fan - but it's also a relatively obscure subgenre and people don't tend to request it...

Until today, which takes us to So Much Light, a Sacramento-based project for Damien Verrett where on first listen you could definitely see traces of math rock in the complex, shifting time signatures and knotted melodies of his debut Supine/Spellbound in 2012. But the overall genre of the music proved to be tougher to follow: anchored almost entirely in acoustic guitar and with a pretty impressive backing list of musicians to flesh out the sound, it'd be easier to slot this towards acoustic-leaning indie rock... and then you get our frontman with a remarkably timid and thin vocal delivery and lyrics that would not be far removed from the weirder side of emo. So I'll be blunt and say I wasn't crazy about that debut at all - a couple fascinating arrangements, but little else that gripped me... but we would not see another full-length So Much Light record for another five years - an EP in 2015 and a few scattered singles, but then he signed to ANTI- and we now have a follow-up called Oh, Yuck. So okay, how did it turn out?

video review: 'rainbow' by kesha

Well, this was pretty great. Yeah, like most people I wish this was a tad better overall, but still, pretty terrific all the same.

Can't really say the same about the next record up here... stay tuned!